1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an office apparatus connected to a network, a network system connected to a network, and a method for controlling them, and in particular, to an office apparatus having a mobile agent execution environment, a network system having a mobile agent execution environment, and a method for controlling them.
2. Related Background Art
Most conventional office apparatuses individually provide closed functions without being connected to a network. In recent years, office apparatuses, which were individually used, have been connected to a network such as Ethernet so as to be shared by a plurality of computers acting as clients.
If client computers use such an office apparatus via a network, the conventional method allows these client computers to control this office apparatus. This method assumes that network connectivity is constantly maintained during office processing.
If, for example, a program executed on a workstation, a personal computer, or a portable information terminal device acting as a client computer uses a service that can be provided by an office apparatus, the client computer sends data required for an instruction (request) or processing, to a server program executed by this office apparatus in order to control the operation of the apparatus. Furthermore, the client computer receives a response or required data from the office apparatus. The client computer understands the contents of the response and correspondingly sends a new instruction (request) to the office apparatus.
Therefore, while client computers use a service provided by an office apparatus, interactions between the client computers and the office apparatus are repeated constantly.
In addition, there has recently been a demand for a system capable of combining together services provided by multiple office apparatuses connected to a network in order to implement work flow services. Such services automatically execute as a series of processing, processing conventionally implemented by a user moving among these apparatuses.
For example, a user searches an image file for desired image data. The image data is attached to a file in a PDL form created by a word processor in order to generate print data. The print data is printed by a printer as 20 copies for staple processing. Furthermore, this image data is sent to three destinations by facsimile. Services are required in which such multiple processings are executed as a series of processing by multiple cooperating office apparatuses connected to a network.
To meet this demand, an operation is conventionally repeated in which a single client computer is sequentially connected to multiple office apparatuses to control them using an interactive processing protocol. This operation has already combined multiple apparatuses to implement composite services.
On the other hand, in the field of distributed processing executed by a network consisting of only computers, remote procedure call techniques for executing distributed processing using the interactive processing protocol have been developed and techniques called “mobile agents” have been proposed in which program objects that can be executed by computers move through a network for distributed processing.
Known examples of implemented distributed processing systems using mobile agents include Telescript disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,603,031 to General Magic and Aglets (utilizing Java) developed by IBM Tokyo Basic Research Institute.
An image processing apparatus and its control method have been proposed that receive a mobile agent to interpret a command train described in the received mobile agent in order to control the functions of a relevant apparatus (Japanese Patent Application No. 10-80090).